Manufacturers typically ship products, individual items or products packaged in small boxes, in a variety of different types of light weight paperboard containers. One particular type of carton has a wrap-around style. In this type of a carton, the product to be shipped and handled is placed on a portion of the carton blank that forms the bottom of the carton. The carton is then formed around the product by gluing the appropriate portions of the blank together. This style of carton is used mainly because it is easy to load and thus provides production efficiencies. For example, wrap-around style cartons can be run at higher speeds, there is less downtime when these styles of cartons are run and they tend to be less expensive.
Another carton style that is machine assembled is a bliss style carton, which is formed from multiple blanks. In this style, the main wrapper blank is joined to the other blank pieces before the product is loaded into it. This style of carton is popular because it has stacking strength and is display-ready, i.e. it can be easily converted to a configuration that allows the products inside the carton to be displayed for sale to the ultimate consumer. Most of these styles of cartons typically work for their intended purpose but they could be improved. For example, the materials used to manufacture the cartons can be a significant source of cost for carton manufacturers. Thus, these cartons could be improved if lesser amounts of material were used to form the carton without adversely affecting the structural integrity of the resulting carton or decreasing the volume of product that can be located inside the carton. In addition, when the carton is converted to a display configuration, some of the strength of the carton can be compromised because a significant amount of carton material must be removed to allow display of the products. Finally, the carton typically is not stackable after the carton has been converted to its display configuration because of the significant amount of the carton material that has been removed.